HDD Recovery

[benchi]

Hey,
A friend of mine had their hdd die not to long ago, just ceased to boot up. (80GB Seagate IDE). I got them a new PC, but some of the data on the old hdd is very important to them, and like most people who don't know much about computers, they never backed up any of it.

Since data recovery prices are so exorbitant I thought I'd have a crack at recovering the data from it. I already determined that it was the dead part back when their PC first stopped booting up. I've put it in several different rigs I've got lying around and they all just refuse to boot (when put in there with another hdd as the master, or just by itself).

Here's how it runs when the power gets flicked on:
1. System Starts up, but no POST screen, no mobo beep
2. HDD activity LED blinks very quickly and evenly
3. The 80GB spins up, but the system never POSTs

Any suggestions on what I can do? As master, or slave, nothing ever happens. The HDD isn't completely dead as it still spins, but Ive got no way to try and read off of it. Because it doesn't POST I can't get into Windows, or Linux, can't even boot up off a live CD.

I think I may have the same hdd lying in my spare parts box, so I could check to see if the logic boards are the same, but I'd rather do what I can without taking a screwdriver to it.

thanks in advanced

 

[TheEmperor]

There are several tools you can try Get Data Back and Recover My Files are the two I use at work with the most success. You can buy the software for $30-$50, which I suggest doing to get the most out of it. And you'll have to put that hard drive in as a secondary drive on another system and have enough free space to store the recovered files once you are done running the program. Personally I like Recover my Files better, so here's a link Data Recovery Software to Undelete; File recovery; Disk recovery; Recover Deleted Files.

Ouch, I just noticed that you said it won't post when you have it in a system, even as a slave. You can go out and get an IDE to USB widget like this one that we use at work and try to boot a system, then plug the HD in as a USB drive and run one of the recovery packages I recommended. Data recovery is pretty much never free, but you might get out of this for under $100. And if their data is that important they should be willing to reimburse you.

 

[benchi]

The problem is that if I put it in as a secondary drive an a system, the whole system will just refuse to boot up, so I can't run any recovery software from that system.

 

[DawnOfDoom]

install windows on secondary drive, boot up on that to make sure it works. shutdown, add the primary drive, boot and attempt to recover lost files?